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April 8, 2007
One-way debate continues
The Brooklyn Paper
The traffic changes proposed by the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) for Park Slope are discussed further in this week's letters section. The consensus: the DOT plan is a mistake.
The last letter on the page "Blame Bruce, Part II" sums up so well what is wrong with how public money is being used to advance the Atlantic Yards proposal:
To the editor,
There are so many legitimate objections that can be raised against the Atlantic Yards project, and you raised a key one in your editorial, “The Ratner Rip-off” (March 17). In it, you argued that the public needs to know much more about the financing of this project.
It is bad enough that billions of state dollars are being given to one developer, but is beyond scandalous that the details of such a large public project are kept hidden from the taxpayer. All we really know for sure is what the newspapers have gleaned, what politicians have let slip, and what assumptions haven’t been publicly denied.
The greatest factor facing any developer is that of risk; will a project make money or lose money? In the case of Atlantic Yards, the state and city have offered so much financial support that Ratner is all but guaranteed a profit, no matter how badly planned or executed it may be.
Once we compare the money being spent by all of the relevant government entities, and the subsidies being given to Ratner, it’s reasonable to wonder why the state is partnering with him rather than doing it alone, or with a more-talented and accomplished development company.
Forest City Ratner or the Empire State Development Corporation are more than welcome to open their documents publicly and prove us all wrong, and yet they haven’t. To this day, the cornerstone of this development is an arena for the Nets, and still no one will say for sure that the contract even commits the team to moving there and staying there. If Ratner gets a better offer to keep the team in New Jersey, can he leave the team there, and still retain all of the property?
The lack of answers can’t be remedied by another politician assuring us “these things have all been taken into consideration” without letting the public know what the contracts really say or what the answers really are. If the future of Brooklyn is being decided by people who would prefer that we not know what they’re doing, by what right do they expect us to assume they’re doing the right thing?
Secrecy breeds distrust, and usually for good reasons.
Brian Kenny, Park Slope
Please check out the other letters, too.
Posted by steve at April 8, 2007 9:30 AM